Joan Halifax

A Buddhist teacher draws from her years of experience in caring for the dying to provide inspiring lessons on how to face death with courage and compassion The Buddhist approach to death can be of great benefit to people of all backgrounds—as has been demonstrated by Joan Halifax’s decades of work with the dying and their caregivers. A Zen priest and a world-renowned pioneer in care of the dying, Halifax has helped countless people face death with courage and trained caregivers in compassioante end-of-life care.In this book, Halifax offers lessons from dying people and caregivers, as well as guided meditations to help readers contemplate death without fear, develop a commitment to helping others, and transform suffering and resistance into courage. Her teachings affirm that we can open and contact our inner strength—and that we can help others who are suffering to do the same. Being with Dying is a source of wisdom for anyone who is facing their own death, caring for someone who is dying, or wishing to explore the transformative power of the dying process.

"In Standing at the Edge, Joan Halifax weaves together scientific research and her own powerful personal experiences as a social activist and humanitarian to show how we can transform our biggest challenges with compassion and wisdom. Standing at the Edge is essential reading for our time." -- Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive GlobalStanding at the Edge is an evocative examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience.Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, an anthropologist, and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom--and how we can transform our experience of suffering into the power of compassion for the benefit of others.In this audiobook, Halifax identifies five psychological territories she calls Edge States--altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement--that epitomize strength of character. Yet each of these states can also be the cause of personal and social suffering. In this way, these five psychological experiences form edges, and it is only when we stand at these edges that we become open to the full range of our human experience and discover who we really are.Recounting the experiences of caregivers, activists, humanitarians, politicians, parents, and teachers, incorporating the wisdom of Zen traditions and mindfulness practices, and rooted in Halifax's groundbreaking research on compassion, Standing at the Edge is destined to become a contemporary classic.A powerful guide on how to find the freedom we seek for others and ourselves, this is an audiobook that will serve us all.Praise for Standing at the Edge: "...narrator Joan Halifax's meditative voice takes us by the ear and reorients us toward serenity...Her slow and steady pace allows listeners to keep up with the considerable wisdom she is passing along. This title will likely leave listeners feeling serene." - AudioFile Magazine"Halifax offers an invitation to hold these states not only in our minds, but in our hearts." -- Psychology Today

In this “masterwork of an authentic spirit person” (Thomas Berry), Buddhist teacher and anthropologist Joan Halifax Roshi delves into “the fruitful darkness”—the shadow side of being, found in the root truths of Native religions, the fecundity of nature, and the stillness of meditation. In this highly personal and insightful odyssey of the heart and mind, she encounters Tibetan Buddhist meditators, Mexican shamans, and Native American elders, among others. In rapt prose, she recounts her explorations—from Japanese Zen meditation to hallucinogenic plants, from the Dogon people of Mali to the Mayan rain forest, all the while creating "an adventure of the spirit and a feast of wisdom old and new” (Peter Matthiessen). Halifax believes that deep ecology (which attempts to fuse environmental awareness with spiritual values) works in tandem with Buddhism and shamanism to discover “the interconnectedness of all life,” and to regain life’s sacredness. Grove Press is proud to reissue this important work by one of Buddhism’s leading contemporary teachers.

Shamans, the physical and spiritual healers who are the central figures of many tribal cultures, share eloquent testimonies including harrowing tales of initiatory rites, vivid accounts of visionary journeys, and revealing expressions of their unique position as the link between the tribe and the cosmos.

Summarizes forms of shamanism in various cultures, looks at its origin, and compares the methods shamans use to gain a vision of other realities

A story for kids ages 4–8 about a young girl and her encounters with a dog that teaches her friendship, presence, loss, and bravery.This charming story follows a young girl named Sophie and a sweet old dog who cross paths in the midst of a storm. “Breathing in, I am safe; breathing out, I am free,” Sophie repeats again and again to remind herself and the "old one" to stay present and brave when feeling scared or unsettled. In helping each other through their fears, a deep kinship is formed that makes a lasting impact on Sophie’s life.

Joan Halifax is known for her work with the dying. In this book she relates how she found a life of her own through her contact with traditional cultures and through association with people like Alan Lomax, Stanislav Grof and Joseph Campbell. At first a refuge from painful mental anguish, Buddhism became, in time, a place of refreshment and self-rediscovery for her. It also gave texture to her life of service, leading to the practice of "engaged Buddhism" that is attentive to the suffering world and a healing presence within it.

Poetry This book is a collection of short poems by Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax. The poems are inspired by her meditation practice at Upaya Zen Center, her life at Prajna Mountain Forest Refuge, where she lives as a hermit, and her travels in Asia. In modern haiku form, Roshi Joan captures the sense of the wild life and wild weather that abound at her hermitage, the tenderness of loss and death, the joy in the details of her travels and practice in Japan, and the poignancy of the changing world that passes through her experience. Sorrow, humor, wisdom, tenderness can all be found in these jewel-like poems. The book was created on the occasion of her 70th birthday and the 20th anniversary of Upaya Zen Center, where she is Founding Abbot.

Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has explored the medium of photography since she was very young. She has captured striking images of the people and places she has encountered in her extensive travels in Tibet, Burma, throughout Asia, and elsewhere. This book, published on the occasion of her seventieth birthday, is a selection of her compelling and heartfelt photographs and an essay on her experience of seeing.

This article is part of the larger work Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives by Joan Halifax.Twenty years after becoming a shaman, Sereptie, a Nganasani or Tavgi Samoyed of Siberia, told the story of his initiation. Among Samoyeds and many other Siberian peoples, the election of the future nga (shaman) involved not only his shaman ancestors but also many deities and spirits, malevolent and benevolent, that were associated with elements in nature as well as powerful diseases. The future nga was chosen by these entities to pursue his profession, but the central event directing the novice was, inevitably, a severe physical illness or psychological crisis that opened the gate to worlds of nonordinary experience.

On his deathbed Plato was asked to summarize his life's work. He replied, "Practice dying." In the 2,000 years since Plato offered this wise admonition, we have developed many practices associated with living. But what of the practices associated with dying? Being with Dying is a response to this an approach to death that is kind, open, and dignified and that allows us to explore the meaning of death in the experience of our own lives and through the lives of others.Founded by Joan Halifax, Being with Dying began as a project to help health-care professionals and their patients learn to see death and know life in terms of compassion and awakening. Distilled from this influential program, the Being with Dying audio learning course combines Eastern and Western psychology, philosophy, and contemplative practices from many spiritual traditions. This innovative, hands-on approach has taught medical professionals, social workers, clergy, community activists, and spiritual seekers an elegant path for taking the fear out of the dying experience. In gently caring for the dying, we also learn to more wisely care for the living - and for life itself.Often in our culture, life is equated with success and death with failure. Being with Dying honestly examines death and dying not in terms of medical success or failure - but as a possibility for awakening. Join Joan Halifax and learn key practices for creating a calm, mindful, sacred space where life and death are brought into the full light of awareness.